The books were edited and possibly co-written by Rose Wilder, Laura’s daughter, and turned into saccharine children’s books when the early drafts were far more detailed and interesting. I don’t know how much of LIW’s original journals, writings, drafts etc. might survive in pre-edit form.
I would hardly use the word “saccharine” to describe the grasshopper/locust plague, the psychotic woman who Laura boards with as a young teacher, the death of Laura’s baby boy, or virtually the entire text of The Long Winter.…among many other points. Cleaned up slightly for children’s consumption, perhaps; focused toward a particular moral at times, certainly; saccharine, not exactly.
From this 2003 thread:
[QUOTE=BrotherCadfael]
I don’t know that I would characterize the original books as “cheered up and sanitized”, though.
In Little House on the Prairie the family nearly dies from malaria, and are nearly wiped out by local Indians.
In By the Banks of Plum Creek they nearly freeze to death during the winter, and their farm is destroyed by locusts.
In By the Shores of Silver Lake a neighbor girl is married off unwillingly at age 13.
In The Long Winter, they nearly starve to death. In the scene where Charles buys the hidden wheat from the Wilder brothers the effects of his malnutrition are described quite clearly.
In Little Town on the Prarie there are confrontations with drunken railroad workers.
In These Happy Golden Years Laura witnesses a crazed woman threatening her husband with a knife.
In The First Four Years she has a stillborn baby. [Actually a child who died shortly after birth.]
Pretty grim, no? But these books show life on the frontier. As seen through a child’s eyes, yes, but hardly “sanitized”.
Does anyone else get the impression that Charles Ingalls failed at pretty much everything he tried?
[/QUOTE]
I’ve always called BS on Edwards walking forty miles to Independence and back to buy the Christmas gifts. Pa wasn’t planning to make that trip in the middle of the winter, anyway. He had bought the gifts earlier and left them with Edwards so the girls wouldn’t find them ahead of time. Edwards is just telling a yarn.
They’re still happy that Edwards forded the river to get to them. But he never walked eighty miles for two tin cups.
This is why I only read books about little rich kids.
Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography. It’s a transcription of Laura’s original first draft notebooks with copious annotations describing the changes made between the drafts and the books (along with mini-bios of every single person in the story–gets a bit much at time). There are also pictures. Almanzo Wilder was hot!
Briefly. Then he grew that goofy moustache.
Socks wear out. Tin lasts.
Or use it to cook something.
Also in the book, Mr. Edwards brought a few sweet potatoes for dinner.
Thanks. I had a vague memory that something like this existed. Hmm. Maybe it’s time to pick it up.
All true, but the tone of the books is very watered-down, even namby-pamby in spots, sort of like “Pooh goes to Auschwitz.” They really are a peculiar set of books, when you stop to think about it.
The Lutheran in me wants to suggest that that’s how people behave when they know how to behave themselves. Something that comes through is that there’s a lot of mental management going on. Lots of emoting the family members simply don’t do, because they can’t afford to.
A little off topic but does anyone know why these books aren’t available on Kindle or even Audible? Seems like they are more than popular enough?
I don’t know about the Little House books, but A Wilder Rose, the biography of Rose Wilder Lane by Susan Wittig Albert, is available on audible.com. It details how Rose edited her mother’s notes and talks about the dynamic between them. I assume it’s available for kindle, too.
Exactly. Context is everything. During our family Christmases years ago as little kids we would all sort of roll our eyes at Grampa and Grandmas stories, which we deduced were designed to make us feel guilty. And deservedly so probably.
Lots of people were poor before any Depression. Grandma said a big hit one year was an Orange. She shared it with her sister. Another was a scarf.
Later during the 1930s, Gramps was a traveling salesman, a good job. He took the opportunity to visit some long lost relatives in South Dakota. One small girl was very excited to show off her new doll to Gramps, it was a picture of a doll filched from a Sears catalog, pasted on some cardboard. He said he couldn’t help it, started crying.
So anyway yeah, getting yer own cup for Christmas was pretty groovy I’m sure.
They are available for Kindle.
:smack: They are. I should have checked before I posted- have been checking every once in a while for years- looks like they were released March 2016.
I know my library system has a lot of them available through their digital lending program…borrow for 21 days.
Really? The books were intended for kids (little girls, especially) but I didn’t find them “namby pamby.” Are you getting them confused with the TV show–which I never watched?
(If you want namby-pamby, check out the Elsie Dinsmore books.)